The median advertised pay for a travel PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) contract in California is $2,696 per week, with the middle half between $2,504 and $2,910. Measured across 22 active travel PACU contracts in California at 18 facilities, as of 2026-09-15.
Advertised weekly totals, taxable base plus tax-free stipends. Not take-home.
That is 16 percent over the $2,332 national median for travel PACU contracts.
California is not a Nurse Licensure Compact state, so you need a California license to work here even if you hold a multistate license. The compact state list explains which states issue one.
| Weekly rate | Open contracts |
|---|---|
| Under $2,300 | 2 |
| $2,300 to $2,400 | 2 |
| $2,400 to $2,500 | 2 |
| $2,500 to $2,600 | 2 |
| $2,600 to $2,700 | 3 |
| $2,700 to $2,800 | 3 |
| $2,800 to $2,900 | 2 |
| $2,900 and up | 6 |
All 22 open contracts, banded by advertised weekly rate. The outer bands are open-ended so nothing falls outside the chart.
California has the highest price level of the 51 states and territories the Bureau of Economic Analysis measures: 11 percent over the national average overall. The premium is concentrated in housing, at 54 percent over, while goods sit 6 percent over and services 3 percent over. That matters more than the headline number, because housing is the part a tax-free stipend is meant to cover and the rest comes out of taxed wages.
| Metro | Open contracts | Median weekly | Rent, 1 bed |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 4 | $2,829 | $2,680/mo |
| Clearlake | 2 | $2,529 | — |
| Mountain View | 2 | $2,862 | $3,210/mo |
| Rancho Mirage | 2 | $2,508 | $1,930/mo |
| San Leandro | 2 | $2,773 | $1,955/mo |
| Fullerton | 1 | $2,322 | $2,130/mo |
| Huntington Park | 1 | $3,016 | $1,810/mo |
| Northridge | 1 | $2,284 | — |
| Orange | 1 | $2,628 | $2,430/mo |
| Palmdale | 1 | $2,839 | $2,080/mo |
| Saint Helena | 1 | $2,705 | $1,960/mo |
| San Diego | 1 | $2,329 | $2,530/mo |
Rent is the one-bedroom Fair Market Rent HUD publishes for that metro, which is what a housing stipend is trying to cover. The open-contract count beside each metro is the sample its median rests on, and outside the largest markets that sample is small: a median over one or two contracts is a single posting's rate rather than a market rate, so read the count first.
Browse the board for current PACU assignments in California.
Drawn from the postings that state a requirement, which is not all of them, so each figure carries the number it was measured from. Your recruiter confirms the specifics for a given contract before submission.
All 30 states with PACU openings